Did Barefoot Bandit Try to Fly Again?

Feb. 23, 2010

By EAMON McNIFF

Courtesy Island County Sheriff?s Office

ABC News has learned the infamous alleged "barefoot bandit," 18-year-old Colton Harris-Moore who police say is behind a string of burglaries and the thefts of several boats and airplanes in exclusive vacation communities in the Pacific Northwest, may have attempted to steal another plane last Friday.

The failed attempt sources tell ABC News, came at the very same airport -- on Orcas Island, about 80 miles north of Seattle -- where police reportedly suspect that Harris-Moore landed another stolen plane just eight days earlier.

According to two people familiar with the investigation, a hanger was broken into and the keys were found left inside the plane on Oct. 19 after what appeared to be a failed theft, and police believe it was Harris-Moore, although no formal announcement on the break-in has been made by law enforcement.

Harris-Moore's name was back in the headlines on Feb 11, after a $600,000 Cirruss SR22 single-engine plane was stolen from an airport in Anacortes, Wash.and was landed, officials say, rather sloppily off the runway into the mud at the Orcas Island Airport.

Part of Harris-Moore's infamy is the fact that he is suspected in the theft and crash landing of two other airplanes around the Island and San Juan County areas, despite having no formal flight experience, police say, other than ordering a flight instruction manual with a stolen credit card.

According to San Juan County Sheriff Bill Cumming, the Feb. 11 theft nearly turned into an international incident after the pilot flew dangerously close to the restricted airspace around the Vancouver Olympic Games.

That plane was discovered the morning of Feb. 11, and also discovered in Orcas that morning was a break-in at the Homegrown Market, a small organic grocer littered with the barefoot bandit's reported calling card: 39 chalk outline drawings of bare feet and a rather taunting "c yah" written in chalk by the side door the burglar allegedly exited.

"We continue to hold him as a primary person of interest, obviously," Cumming said in an interview today about Harris-Moore.

Cumming said the San Juan County and Island County Sherriff's offices are working with the FBI to bring Harris-Moore in, although for the past two years that has been no easy task. According to police, Harris-Moore is suspected in committing two boat thefts and up to 30 burglaries in Island County alone since 2008, earning the barefoot moniker after police said the suspect was barefoot during a majority of his crimes.

Harris-Moore, from nearby Camano Island, has earned folk hero like status on the Internet, being compared to a modern day Huckleberry Finn or Jesse James. People are selling T-shirts with his image, and the requisite fan Web site, Facebook page, and YouTube Video have been created lauding his uncanny ability to slip away from police and vanish on the islands off Washington's Pacific coast.

In a least once case, police say Harris-Moore ordered pizzas and asked for them to be delivered to the edge of the woods. Another time he allegedly left behind a camera with a cheeky photograph of himself in a Mercedes Benz police say he's suspected of stealing, which only added to his legend.

People in Orcas are on edge after police say Harris-Moore ripped through the town last summer. He's suspected in committing seven burglaries during August and September.

The latest robbery victim says the crime couldn't have come at a worse time.